Tag: Corinna Dean

The Emerging Territories Research Group: “Max Lock Centre Celebration Day” | Friday, April 26, 2024 from 10:00 to 17:00 (BST) in M416

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Friday, 26th of April 2024, 10am – 5pm (BST)

Where: M416, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, NW1 5LS

The Emerging Territories Research Group is hosting a one-day event to celebrate the Max Lock Centre (MLC) and its legacy, and to discuss the future perspectives of current international urban and sustainable development-related research undertaken at the School of Architecture and Cities of the University of Westminster.

In the morning, as a contribution to a discussion of innovative methodologies applied to international planning projects, the MLC team will trace the history of its key projects over the almost thirty years of activity. These include, among others, the master planning of the city of Kaduna in Nigeria, ongoing since the initial work undertaken post-independence in the 1960s, by architect-planner Max Lock and his partner and a former director of MLC, the late Dr Mike Theis. A roundtable with UoW alumni working in international planning and sustainable development, and urban design will follow.

In the afternoon, current multi-disciplinary research undertaken in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East will be briefly presented, and a final workshop on International Urban Dialogues will be organized to reflect on how to shape an open and inclusive global hub of international urban research, practice, and knowledge exchange. A research agenda will be launched, building on the legacy of the MLC and its original idea of ‘Planning by People’ and community participation.

The day will end with the opening of the MLC exhibition, a retrospective of Centre projects illustrating its methodology and historic work from the Max Lock Archive. This will include a repeat-showing of “Civic Diagnosis and City Design: Exploring the life and international influence of the pioneer British Architect-Planner Max Lock 1908-1988. RIBA sponsored exhibition first shown at the University in 1996

Register on Eventbrite

Research and development practice context

Scholars and practitioners working in international planning and development, have been confronted, in recent years, with an increasingly uneasy globalization of urban practices, based on abstract models and discourses of sustainable urbanization, generally lacking context-based understanding of local problems. Beyond the technical skills required by international experts, local understanding of governance issues, power relationships, complex actors networks, and the need of communities are crucial factors to enable projects to kick-off successfully and to ensure their long-term resilience.

However, these practices have been in some cases unsuitable to interpret the diversity and variety of local contexts, and therefore they have often generated extractive and unsustainable local solutions.

One of the underlying questions that will be raised is how to reconcile the international planning practice with emerging and alternative experiences of urbanism from the South? These experiences are tied to new narratives of inclusion and justice focused on the specificity of places, communities and their vulnerabilities, in the attempt to establish genuine dialogues between different world views and cultures.

These experiences have the potential to challenge existing power relationships, nurturing a more equal collaboration between the Global North and Global South. It is under these premises that the symposium has the ambition to define new forms of international urban dialogues, bringing together ideas and concrete proposals to generate an open and inclusive global hub of Research, Practice, and Knowledge Exchange, at the School of Architecture and Cities of the University of Westminster.

Programme

10:00 Introduction to the day

10:05 – 11:15

Max Lock Centre: Projects, Methodology, and Achievements

Tony Lloyd Jones, with Michael Mutter, Ripin Kalra, Fede Redin

11:15-11:45 Coffee Break

11:45-13:00

Working in International Planning and Development

A roundtable, face-to-face and online, with MAIPSD and MAUD Alumni, moderated by David Matthewson

Students: Abu Siddiki (London); Darshana Chauhan (London); Nahid Majid (London); Martyn Clark (Geneva), Richa Joshi  (Dubai); Moshin Ganai (New Delhi? India), [and other invited online participants (?)]

13:00-14:00 Lunch Break

14:00-15:15

Current International Urban Research

Moderated by Krystallia Kamvasinou with short presentations from: Lindsay Bremner (India), Corinna Dean (Pakistan), David Matthewson (Rwanda), Ripin Kalra (Kazakhstan), Ben Stringer (India), Giulio Verdini (Morocco); Paolo Zaide (Philippines), John Zhang (China) and others.

15:15-16:30

Workshop: International Urban Dialogues

Introduced and facilitated by Giulio Verdini, based on the recent RIBA Horizon Scan 2034 on ‘Emerging Economies’. People in the room responding to key questions in breakout groups: Key challenges today in international urban research and practice? Main opportunities for the future? How we can shape an open, and inclusive global hub of international urban research, practice, and knowledge exchange at the UoW?

16:30 Conclusion and Opening of the MLC Exhibition

17:00 Wine Reception

Architects’ Journal publishes a piece on “The Growing Space” by MArch DS20 led by Maria Kramer & Corinna Dean

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

The Growing Space is a 68m2 Douglas fir lightweight timber structure which adds to the existing cluster of buildings making up Cody Dock’s community hub. It runs a programme to expand the charity’s reach, running gardening and workshops for local schools, as well as space for rent.

The architecture was developed as part of a collaborative process. It has a structure of frames with cross-bracing and dry construction with all elements pre-cut with 3D-printed pegs reducing the construction time to 10 days. The base has six pad foundations with paving slabs, wrapped in polycarbonate, allowing the activities within to permeate out.

Architects’ Journal

To read the article in full please visit here.

Featured image by Edmund Sumner via Architects’ Journal

ArCCAT + LFA: “The Common Stream” experimental walk

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

On Friday, June 23 an ‘experimental walk’ organised by ArCCAT (Corinna Dean and Diana Periton), as a part of London Festival of Architecture 2023, took place along the River Lea.

The walk started at Bromley-by-Bow and ended at Cody Dock, where the group gathered in the newly built ‘Growing Space’, a project designed and realised this year by MArch DS20 students led by Maria Kramer and Corinna Dean. 

The walk was jointly led by Corinna Dean, Lindsay Bremner, and Diana Periton, all from the University of Westminster’s School of Architecture and Cities. The group was joined by a Pakistani performance artist, Abuzar Madhu, whose performance practice embodies a profound communication with nature, becoming an act of resistance against prevailing power structures. 

SA+C & LFA: The Common Stream – an experimental walk | Friday, June 23, 2023 starting at Bromley-by-Bow tube station at 15:00 (BST)

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Friday, 23rd of June 2023, 15:00 – 18:00

Where: Meet at Bromley-by-Bow tube at 3pm (BST)

Register on Eventbrite

Rowland Parker’s book The Common Stream tells the history of a Cambridgeshire village through the stream that sustains it. The stream is water source, sewer, communication channel, and common element around which the village coheres.

On this walk from Bromley-by-Bow to Cody Dock along the River Lea, we open a conversation about how bodies of water enact their common presence, raising provocations to be discussed as we walk. What is water as a material – what does it mean to drink it, contaminate it, remediate it? What is water as an entity – what is its legal status, what are its rights? How does water connect – how does the River Lea speak to the creeks of Manila or Chennai and the River Ravi? We will gather our discussions in the Cody Dock Open Air Classroom.

The walk will be jointly led by Corinna Dean, Lindsay Bremner, Stroma Cole and Paolo Zaide, all from the University of Westminster School of Architecture and Cities.

The performance artist Abuzar Madhu will be joining, who’s performance practice embodies a profound communication with nature, becoming an act of resistance against prevailing power structures.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-common-stream-tickets-607394602607?aff=oddtdtcreator

Please contact Corinna Dean directly with any event queries

Architecture + Cities Research Seminar: Corinna Dean “Let’s Talk About Contamination: Green, Blue and Grey Corridors ” | Monday, June 12, 2023 at 1pm (BST) | Online

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Monday, 12th of June 2023 at 13:00 (BST)

Where: Online (link below)

The final Architecture + Cities Reserch Seminar for this academic year will take place on Monday, 12th of June, 13.00 – 14.000, online. 

Corinna Dean will present her work on the River Lee in a presentation titled: Let’s Talk about Contamination: Green, Blue and Grey Corridors.

The link to the seminar is here.

All are welcome!

LFA & SA+C: The Cody Dock Growing Space | Saturday, June 3, 2023 from 11:00 to 13:00 (BST) at Cody Dock

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Saturday, 3rd of June 2023 from 11am to 1pm

Where: Cody Dock, 11c South Cres, London E16 4TL

Staff and students from the University of Westminster have designed and built a QHT funded Therapeutic Horticulture Centre in collaboration with Cody Dock, OfCA and WebbYates Engineers. The pavilion is designed as a lightweight timber structure with a butterfly roof and demonstrates that plants growing and humans can happily co-exist in one space. There will also be an exhibition about the making process.

Cody Dock is a fantastic charity and social enterprise transforming the dock into a creative industries quarter with community gardens and footpaths – opening up the Lower Lea River whilst promoting regeneration for conservation, environmental and cultural benefit.

Students took part in stakeholder engagement to better understand needs and aspirations. We then developed designs for a visionary community space based on the initial research, suitable for the local context and site. We introduce new ways of working collaboratively across sectors and take our multidisciplinary skills within academia and use these in live projects to serve communities and have a positive impact on society whilst introducing students and staff to alternative practice, providing a deeper understanding of the multiplex relationships.

This Live Project was initiated by Maria Kramer and supported by Corinna Dean.

The event is FREE.

For more information about the project please go here.

School of Architecture + Cities: Gender Ecologies Symposium | March 14-15, 2023

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Tuesday, 14th of March, 13:30 (GMT) – Wednesday, 15th March, 16:30 (GMT)

Where: School of Architecture + Cities, University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

Gender Ecologies is a programme of the British Council launched to support the development and delivery of projects that explore the intersection of women, climate change and arts, demonstrating how arts can be a catalyst for positive change, action and impact in environmental issues. The programme promotes collaboration and mutual exchange of crossdisciplinary knowledge and skills between Pakistan and the UK.

Book your tickets on Eventbrite

Please note: when booking your tickets for the conference, please note you will need to reserve tickets for both days (14 and 15 March) if you intend to be present at both.  

Should you be interested in attending the Cody Dock event on 12th March, please contact Corinna

ITINERARY: OFF SITE/ON SITE WORKSHOP

Sunday 12 March 11 am – 4.30 pm

Location: Cody Dock, Lower Lea Valley

Grounding Landscapes: embodied mapping led by choreographers Claire Burrell and Carolyn Deby from Sirenscrossing with a response from Pakistani based Performance Artist Abuzar Madhu. The Cody Dock resident ecologist will draw observations of the local primary species as part of the workshop.

Tuesday 14 March 1.30 pm -4.30 pm

Location: University of Westminster, Marylebone Road, London, Room 204.

Roundtable symposium where Marvi Mazhar (architect) with Zohaib Kazi (filmmaker) and Abuzar Madhu (performance artist) will be discussing their recent filming of activist fisherwomen, around the Indus River, Pakistan. The documentary will be a visual investigation to open questions about the significance of land and water protection in times of climate crisis. Corinna Dean will respond with her research along the River Lea which looks at the role of contamination and remediation as agency.

Wednesday 15 March 1.30 pm – 4.30 pm

Location: University of Westminster, Marylebone Road, London, Room 204.

The Gender Ecologies team will be joined by Lindsay Bremner, (Professor, architect, writer, head of research UoW) Carolyn Deby, (Sirenscrossing), Claire Burrell (Choreographer) and Kate McMillan (artist, author, King’s College) to discuss how art and research methodologies can raise awareness of environmental issues and environmental justice.

Call for Interest: Workshop “Wet Urbanities, Liquid Futures” | January 4-10, 2023, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi, Kerala, India

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Deadline for expression of interest: Monday, October 31, 2022

We invite interdisciplinary participants from, but not limited to, the field of arts, architecture, landscape, environmental studies/ecology and anthropology to take part in a 6 Day Workshop which will explore more-than-human entanglements and environmental relationships drawing on the waterways in Kochi, Kerala.

With a thorough interdisciplinary orientation to the case study of Kochi, the workshop will engage a range of questions concerning the human and other-than-human dimensions of environmental change and the effect of such change on the environment and society.

Actions

The workshop will ask participants to engage with the creation of an assemblage of knowledge and engagement through a ‘more than human’ approach. To do this we will activate a number of activities in which we explore the waterways using techniques which borrow from vernacular practices, the animal world, and an ecological framing around New Materialism. The workshop will instigate a process of how to engage creatively with life on an endangered planet.

Activities will engage with space-related topics, peers, and invited guests in a common workshop setting complemented by lectures, excursions and gatherings. Good proficiency in English is preferred.

For pre-enrolment, please fill in the online form on the link below by October 31, 2022.

Workshop shout_Wet Urbanisms, Liquid Futures.

The workshop is free of charge. Participants are expected to organize and pay for their own travel, visas, food, and accommodation.

The workshop is part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. Framed by the theme “In our Veins Flow Ink and Fire” we will address the question formulated by the curators of this year’s edition: “What do we find when we listen, read, record, think and make?”

+ info on the Biennale at kochimuzirisbiennale.org

The workshop is curated and facilitated by Dr. Corinna Dean and Duarte Santo
Additional information by email to c.dean@westminster.ac.uk and duarte.santo@cornell.edu

Emerging Territories Symposium: London Lab / Global Hub | Friday, May 13, 2022 from 10:00 to 18:00 (BST) in M416, Marylebone Campus, University of Westminster

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

When: Friday, 13th of May 2022 from 10am to 6pm (BST)

Where: M416, University of Westminster, Marylebone campus, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS

Register via Eventbrite.

Background

The ‘Emerging Territories’ research group hosts a one-day symposium on current research initiatives of the School of Architecture and Cities, which contributes to the global agenda of sustainability of the University of Westminster. We work at the interface between London-based explorative practices, and globally-relevant projects, with the aim to promote and design more resilient and inclusive communities, places, and territories, around the following priority emerging areas: Climate Urbanism; Health & Wellbeing; Urban-Rural Interfaces; Anthropocene Territories; Public Space and Diversity.

Concept

Urban and Architectural research, in recent years, is confronted with new challenges affecting cities and the built environment: the unexpected outbreak of the COVID19 pandemic, the increasing evidence of the tangible impact of climate change, and the rising tensions among nation states in a changing global scenario. This has resulted in unprecedented social and environmental vulnerabilities, and new rapidly evolving phenomena, such as the digital transition of the way of living, residing and working.

Taken together, these challenges pose serious questions that scholars in the field of architecture and planning should face, in primis the redefinition of the notion of local vs global, and the very idea of scholarly engagement across different places in the new normal.  On the other hand, this can be taken as an opportunity to define new ‘emerging territories’ of research where problems can be captured, solutions can be tested, and ideas can be shared more effectively across multiple scales and contexts.

The aim of the symposium is therefore to bring together interdisciplinary research between architecture and planning, based at the School of Architecture and Cities and to share new ideas and approaches to tackle city problems and their vulnerabilities in the new global context.

Contributors

Krystallia Kamvasinou, Giulio Verdini (Co-Chairs), with Roudaina Alkhani, Lindsay Bremner, Sabina Cioboata, Corinna Dean, Shengkang Fu, Ripin Kalra, Kon Kim, Tony Lloyd Jones, David W. Mathewson, Michael Neuman, Mai Sairafi, Ben Stringer, and others to be confirmed.

For queries on the symposium, please contact:

Giulio Verdini G.Verdini@westminster.ac.uk or Krystallia Kamvasinou K.Kamvasinou01@westminster.ac.uk

Monsoon [+ other] Grounds – Full Programme_Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd of March,

Posted on by Mirna Pedalo

Monsoon [+ other] Grounds is the third in a series of symposia convened by the Monsoon Assemblages project. It will comprise a key-note address, inter-disciplinary panels, and an exhibition. The event will bring together scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines to engage in conversations about geologies, soils, histories, spatialities, and modifications of monsoon [+ other] grounds.

The confirmed keynote speaker is:

Tim Ingold, Professor and Chair of Social Anthropology at the University of Aberdeen. His early work involved ethnographic research amongst the Skolt Saami of northeast Finland. This led to a more general concern with human-animal relations. Most recently, he has been working on the connections between anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture, conceived as ways of exploring the relations between human beings and the environments they inhabit, as mutually enhancing ways of engaging with our surroundings. Ingold is author of numerous books, anthologies and essays, including, most recently, The Life of Lines (Routledge, 2015) and Anthropology: Why it Matters (Polity Press, 2018).

Event Programme

Thursday 21 March

15.30 Registration / Tea

15.45 Welcome: Simon Joss, University of Glasgow

16.00 – 17.00 Exhibition walk-about led by John Cook

Exhibitors: Alexandra Arenes, Matt Barlow, Blue Temple, Hari Byles, Corinna Dean, DS18 students, Tumpa Fellows, MONASS, Ben Pollock

17.00 – 18.00 [multi]grounds

Chair: Ed Wall, University of Greenwich

Lindsay Bremner, MONASS: On sediment as method

Ifor Duncan, Goldsmiths College: Sedimentary Witness

18.30 Keynote Lecture: Tim Ingold, University of Aberdeen

Chair: Lindsay Bremner

Friday 22 March

09.45 Registration / Coffee

10.00 Welcome + introduction: Lindsay Bremner, MONASS

10.15 – 11.30 [over]ground matters

Chair: Godofredo Pereira, Royal College of Art

Alexandra Arenes, University of Manchester: Mapping the Critical Zones

Christina Leigh Geros, MONASS: Here be Dragons

Avi Varma, Goldsmiths College: Unjust Intonations

11.30 – 11.45 Tea

11.45 – 13.00 [inter]ground matters

Chair: Kirsten Hastrup, University of Copenhagen

Owain Jones, Bath Spa University: Monsoon + Tide

Jonathan Cane, University of the Witwatersrand: Permeability, Ocean, Concrete

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch: Convivial Grounds

14.00 – 15.00 [under]ground matters

Chair: Tim Waterman, The Bartlett UCL

Anthony Powis, MONASS: The Materiality of Groundwater: Leaking, Seeping, Swelling, Cracking

Matt Barlow, University of Adelaide: Floating (under) ground

15:00 – 16:00 [in]ground matters

Chair: Alfredo Ramirez Galindo, AA

Eric Guibert, University of Westminster: Architectural Soils

Harshavardhan Bhat, MONASS: About a Monsoon Forest

16.00 – 16.15 Tea

16.15 – 17.30 [with]ground matters

Chair: Radha D’Souza, University of Westminster

Naiza Khan, Goldsmiths College: Sticky Rice and Other Stories

Beth Cullen, MONASS: Brick

Labib Hossain, Cornell University: Wetness and the City: A Critical Reading of the Dry and Permanent Ground Through the Practice of Muslin Weaving in Bengal

17.30 – 17.45 Closing Remarks: David Chandler

17.45 -19.00 Drinks